Item Details:

PORTE CHAPEAU

THE EVERCLEVER ART COLLECTIVE (after MARCEL DUCHAMP)

NEO-DADA SCULPTURE, 1917/2024

Bent Wood Hatrack, suspended

Size: 12 x 14 x 9.5 in; 30.5 x 35.6 x 24.1 cm

Signed on underside

The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects that the artist selected and modified, as an antidote to what he called "retinal art".  By simply choosing the object (or objects) and repositioning or joining, titling and signing it, the found object became readymade art.

He selected the pieces on the basis of "visual indifference", and the selections reflect his sense of irony, humor and ambiguity: he said "it was always the idea that came first, not the visual example ... a form of denying the possibility of defining art."

Duchamp only made a total of 13 readymades over a period of time of 30 years. His conception of the readymade changed and developed over time. "My intention was to get away from myself", he said, "though I knew perfectly well that I was using myself. Call it a little game between 'I' and 'me'".

Duchamp was unable to define or explain his opinion of readymades: "The curious thing about the readymade is that I've never been able to arrive at a definition or explanation that fully satisfies me." Much later in life Duchamp said, "I'm not at all sure that the concept of the readymade isn't the most important single idea to come out of my work."

Robert Fulford described Duchamp's ready-mades as expressing "an angry nihilism".

Duchamp visited the readymade "rack" idea twice -

• Hat Rack (Porte-chapeaux), c. 1917. A wooden hatrack that Duchamp suspended from the ceiling of his studio (see photo below) and the version on which the present work is based, and
• Trap (Trébuchet), 1917. Wood and metal coatrack. Duchamp submitted it to a show at the Bourgeois Art Gallery and asked that it be placed near the entryway. It went unnoticed as art during the show.